Amidst recurring defections from opposition political parties into the All Progressives Congress (APC), a chieftain of the party and democracy activist, Comrade Shehu Sani, has predicted a landslide re-election victory for President Bola Tinubu in 2027, if rival parties do not succeed in forming a coalition against the ruling party.
According to the the prominent democracy activist who attempted a shot at Kaduna State governorship in 2023, the internal crises in the opposition have pushed their members away and none of the parties can individually defeat the Tinubu or the APC in the next presidential election.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, Sani who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 9th National Assembly, stressed that “there is no way you can evict a ruling party without a coalition. It’s only on that basis that the coalition that the opposition political parties can sacrifice their own individual and narrow political interests and ambition for the general good of democracy in the country.
“We can have a coalition, and how that is possible is the issue. So far, the SDP said they are not interested in coalition. The PDP said they are not interested in coalition, and the Labor Party seems to be flying alone, and the NNPP says they are not interested in coalition. And if the opposition parties will go to the battle without an alliance, merger or any form of coalition, there is no doubt about it, that APC will have a landslide victory in the 2027 election.
“But if they come together, they will win many seats and will make a very strong impact in the political realm. They lost the 2023 election because of lack of unity, and they are likely to lose this election if they refuse to come together. If the opposition parties refuse to come together and form an alliance or coalition, it is a done deal for us (APC).”
Sani further pointed out that Nigerian political parties do not have strong ideological leanings which is why defections are happening without any consequences.
“They are simply vehicles for people to realize their own political ambitions. If you look at all the manifestos of the party, they all look alike. So, anybody can move from any party to another party without losing anything. And the only thing is that the party differs from each other by their names and not by their own ideology or philosophy.
“If a party is shut down against you, there’s no way you can continue to function in that party. So, it is not the problem of Asiwaju to protect opposition party and to make sure that people don’t migrate away from them, it is the opposition party themselves that need to convince and protect their members from moving to other political parties”, he stated.
The senator also explaijed that more defections to the APC are likely to come because the internal crisies ravaging the main opposition parties are pushing their members away.
His words: “A one-party state is a state where you have a law that prescribes one party, but this is a multi party democracy, and most of the reasons why people are living in the opposition party, is not pull back factors, but push factors. They have been pushed away because of internal crisis, the internal crisis in the PDP, and their inability to resolve it led to the situation where we are today, because this is a party that has about two national secretaries.
“The Supreme Court gave judgment, but that judgment was neither here nor there. So if you have a party that has a leadership problem. The danger of you staying there is that the time for primary elections will come and you will have two factions laying claim to it. So from which of the factions are you going to collect form and fill?
“So there is a likelihood of more defections away from the PDP, because a first time governor in the PDP will not be sure whether he will be given a ticket a senator in PDP will not also be sure whether he will get the ticket. So these are the factors that we have now, and I don’t think it’s going to change in the foreseeable future.”
Nonetheless, Comrade Sani cautions the administration against attempts to forcefully silence opposition criticism as it is essential part of democracy, noting that “we need to understand that we cannot protect this democracy if we do not guarantee people the right to freedom of expression, I understand the exigencies of security and the need to preserve peace, but citizens must be free to freely express themselves and hold government to account. If people are forced to keep quiet and get scared of speaking, the democracy is not safe itself.”
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